Thursday, 23 October 2014

My friend Peter is witty, dashing and erudite - not to mention exceptionally highly-skilled in leatherwork*... in fact, now I come to think about it, he's quite a Catch, girls - but I am very cross with him tonight.

No I'm not. Not really. And Peter, I am sure I never could be. I'm just cross because I read your message too late and, as a result, discovered that I had altogether missed an occasion which will, in years to come, feature on my calendar of events with a glittering star. You see, ladies and gentlemen, today was

MOLE DAY

Yes - Mole Day. It's a thing. From 6:02am to 6:02pm, those who appreciate SI units in the way they should be appreciated (firmly and without blinking) may sit in silence at their desks, wishing beyond wishes that someone would ask them why they look smug. So they could explain, with diagrams, and probably a flipchart, why Amadeo Avogadro is such a fucking dude. Geeks are hot.

flickr.com

I'm not going to explain it. I've put links so you can find out for yourselves. I just love the beauty of the logic which led him to conclude that, in order to compare like with like, that 'like' must first be defined. So he did it on a molecular level, because mere size, mass and volume were insufficient. And in doing so, he gave us the prettiest of numbers:6.0221412927 x 1023. Avogadro's Constant. Or Avogadro's Mole. I love it. There, you see? Follow the link, Wiki will tell you what you need to know.

www.scienceteacher.com

That's more like it. I'm just trying to convince you that my interest in, and knowledge of, the Scientific World extends beyond the Infinite Monkey Cage and attempting to make rude words out of the periodic table.